Big Guns How to – Building Bigger Muscular Arms

So…

You do not see all that many guys walking around with 18 plus inch arms, so you can imagine the answer is not all that simple.

It’s been said over and over again that in order to add an inch to your upper arms you need to gain ten pounds of bodyweight. This advice has become gospel and it seems that nearly everyone agrees with this these days. Real world evidence shows that this is not the case, however.Walk into any public gym on a Monday night at five o’clock and you will see quite a few skinny guys, weighing no more than 170 pounds, who are sporting decent sized arms.

Many of them probably have not gained more than 10 or 15 pounds total since they started training but they all have put more than an inch or two on their arms. This is because localized hypertrophy/ muscle growth will take place if enough volume is present, without a large increase in bodyweight. Look at the calves and thighs on soccer players.

But…

this only happens up to a certain point.

So these young guys read in some magazine about how to build bigger arms and start by doing ten sets of arms 2 or 3 times per week. The volume is enough to elicit a growth response and they may even get a good eight weeks out of this and a quick two inches of arm growth in the absence of any significant weight gain.

Seems to defy the ten pounds per inch rule, right?

what happens after that

where do they go from there

The gains will halt and there will be absolutely no more arm growth whatsoever unless they make some drastic changes.

If ten sets isn’t enough should you try 20? How about 30, maybe work your way up to 100 sets!

There’s nowhere to go with this approach. Like I said, it’s great for some quick gains on your arms but isn’t a long term approach. Once you hit a plateau you have no choice but to start lifting heavier weights and eating more.

More weight on the bar and more food on your plate is the fastest way to increase the size of any body part.

All the fancy supersets, drop sets, tri sets, pre exhaustion, post exhaustion techniques in the world won’t help in the least if you are not doing those two very important things.

Beginners can train the arms 3x a week.

Intermediate and advanced lifters seem to do better training the guns twice a week.

Key Arm Building Exercises

Stick with big exercises:

Build Big Biceps

close grip chin ups

barbell curls

hammer curls

towel curls

dumbbell curls

Building Massive Triceps

parallel bar dips

close grip benches

lockouts

You shouldn’t need more than 2-4 sets of biceps and triceps twice per week to achieve optimal growth, providing that you are always increasing your loads and steadily adding more calories to your diet. After a couple of heavy sets finish your arm workout by getting the biggest pump possible with one or two higher rep sets.

Guest post by Jason FerruggiaJason is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more How to Build Muscle Fast tips, check out http://www.mensfitnessandmore.com/3xmuscle/